


Smoke From This Dead Heart

by kayura_sanada



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Toshiko Sato, Canon Divergence From the Epilogue of Children of Earth Onward, Children of Earth Compliant, Creative License Taken For Ianto's Funeral, Fix-It, M/M, Not House of the Dead Compliant, Not Miracle Day Compliant, Reunions, Sci-Fi Computer BS, Series 03 Fix-It: Children of Earth (Torchwood), Souls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23014240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayura_sanada/pseuds/kayura_sanada
Summary: Jack returns to Torchwood after a long sabbatical, thinking only to meet with Gwen and see how she’s doing before making a much better escape. He ends up getting pulled into a new plot when a man shows up carrying huge, gleaming rocks and gems in a backpack. It turns out this man is carrying something very, very precious to Jack.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 7
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

The road was endlessly long when traveled on foot. The man looked up, one hand on his head to keep his hat from blowing away as yet another car whistled its way past him on the hardtop street. The sun was out, battling against the chilly wind of the north. The lapel of his jacket flapped in the breeze, nearly smacking him in the face. His bangs flung into his face. He pushed the dark locks back and scanned the horizon.

Cardiff. He’d been wanting to come to this place. The death, the chaos, the multitudes of lives sitting on a bomb, all unknowing of their fates. The raw, unbridled emotion that was indelibly stamped on every street corner, in every building, the screams and the pleas for restitution. The hearts still pounding out their last hopes and dreams and fears.

He hefted his backpack higher on his shoulder. The shift caused a horrendous clacking as the thing’s contents cracked against each other.

“Shh,” he whispered, moving the backpack a bit slower. “Just you wait. We’ll get you all set up shortly. We’re almost there.”

He stepped forward.

* * *

It had been a while since he’d been in Cardiff. Jack threw his shoulders back as he stepped off the train and looked around. He put his hands in his pockets. It didn’t look like it had changed much. Still gray. Still busy and full of life, despite what it had gone through because of his brother and the 456.

Still horribly empty.

He took a deep breath. His nostrils flared in momentary pain at the biting cold; September it might have been, but winter had already snaked its tendrils into the air. Such was the way of things in Cardiff. At least one got sunshine most of the time. Unlike in London.

He walked down the familiar streets, turning willfully blind eyes on the places he passed, the people he saw. He knew better than to look for once-familiar faces; through his time as an immortal, he had seen too many people die to think he might catch sight of them again.

Hence why he’d needed, so desperately, to get away.

The leaves on the trees were still green despite the chill; he passed several planted deliberately along the walkways before he made it to the meatier part of the city. Here, the crowds gathered, the hubbub of Cardiff increasing for a short moment as he passed the major business section of the city, before dropping off into near emptiness. Here, only a few people lined the streets, each with someplace better to be. Nevermind the pretty architecture or the fancy waterworks on it, newly rebuilt. Nevermind the man walking up to a single slab of sidewalk and disappearing. They had better places to be.

The sidewalk shifted, then slid down. The recess below shone blue, a startling contrast to the yellowish tone of the sidewalk above. He watched as that blue encompassed his vision, as the familiar sight of Torchwood took over his vision. He had been surprised to find the slab still worked, even more surprised to find the area beneath so similar to how it had once been. As he slid toward the ground, the high call of the pterodactyl greeted him. He turned wide eyes on Myfanwy, amazed to see it alive, even though he’d sent her out before he’d blown up. There was no looking at her without remembering how he met her or how she got her name.

He moved past the entrance, past Toshiko’s computer hub, past the stairs that spiraled down to Owen’s medical lab. Both looked slightly different; the computers at Tosh’s old station were newer, the pictures once lining them gone, replaced with a new set. The steps leading down to Owen’s medical lab were lined on one side with a ramp – so people could more easily go up and down if they were, say, bleeding out. His steps traced the path to his old office. Gwen had moved in here; he could see immediately that she’d put her things up around where once had been his own, creating a space within a space. The desk was new, but in the same place its predecessor had resided. The wall, once filled to the brim with alien artifacts, was now nearly empty. The desk, too, had only a few papers on it and two photos. He picked up one, a simple, small picture frame, only to be greeted with the smiles of their old group. He stared at Owen and Toshiko, on opposite sides of the still, though Toshiko’s gaze had begun to wander by the time the picture had been taken. He saw his own smile, wide and unfettered, basking in the joy of having a team that finally felt like a family. Then he saw Ianto, smiling mutedly beside himself, his shoulders and back relaxed in the way they only did around members of their team, and he very quickly put the picture back down. The other, he saw, was a picture of her and Rhys and a beautiful baby girl.

He looked around. A coat rack remained, though it had been moved to a corner. The item vaults – what was left of them – looked to have been fixed as well as possible. Some of the containers even looked the same, preserving what was inside despite the destruction caused to the hub. He twirled a bit, letting his coat flare around him. He could almost smell coffee in the air. For a second, it smelled amazing. Just like how Ianto always made it. Then the smell really hit his nose, and it smelled stale and bitter and pungent. Because Ianto was no longer there to make it, or to clean it up, or to taste it on his lips ‘to see if he’d gotten it right.’

Jack closed his eyes and breathed in deep. He’d lost several lovers over his horribly long lifespan. This one was just fresher. That was why it was taking him so long to move on from it.

He heard movement down below. He grinned and stepped out of the office. Gwen pointed toward the computer hub, snapping orders to some poor newbie. The tall man ran to do as told, properly whipped into shape by the woman. His grin widened. “Miss me?” he called out. Gwen snapped her head around. The man made some some of squeaky noise and yanked out his gun. Gwen made a shushing motion at him, even as her face split into a wide grin. “Jack! When did you get back? What d’you think?”

“Just now,” he said with a shrug. “It’s looking good, Gwen. You made some improvements.”

“About time someone redecorated this place. Brought it into the twenty-first century, you know?” She laughed. “Got a comfortable couch, too.”

“Our couch was comfortable,” he said. He opened his mouth, ready to make a joke about having good memories on that couch – but he _did_ remember, and it wasn’t good. So he quickly switched to, “I like the ramp.”

“Me, too. Except when Andy tried to slide down it on a skateboard. That wasn’t a fun trip to hospital, I can tell you that.”

“Live the dream, Andy,” he said, turning to the man, and watched him flush. He felt nothing at the sight of it save, deep within him, a flicker of amusement. No lust, no pleasure. Just a souring feeling in his stomach. He looked back at Gwen. “So you’ve got a greenie to entertain you.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Ah, this is Andy. You know, my friend from the police station? He’s just been helping out around here for me while I get this organized. Situated, you know?” Gwen dismissed the man with a wave of her hand – something Andy noticed himself, Jack saw – and raced up the stairs to his side. “It’s good to see you. I was worried…”

Andy’s eyes remained wide as he holstered his gun. Jack saw trembles still shivering down those pale shoulders. He watched them for a second before turning his grin back on Gwen. He knew what she’d been worried about. He didn’t know how to tell her that she was right to be. “I came to see how you were doing. It looks like you’re surviving better than I expected. But no recruits?” He shook his head. “You can’t do all this alone.”

She frowned. “I won’t have to. You’re back now.”

He winced.

He had no intention of staying. There was little chance he would ever want to see this city again, no matter that those few he had left could only be found here. He’d come to see Gwen for a few days, maybe check how Torchwood was doing. See how Gwen’s leadership went. But staying here… knowing what was now lying in the back room with any other remaining bodies… no. He couldn’t be here.

He hadn’t intended to tell Gwen. But he would have to. Later.

“For now, how about you show me around?” he said, thinking to take a look at the basement, the state of the Rift. Something to keep his mind busy. An investigation. A mystery. An unfinished alien puzzle. They could say their goodbyes around a weevil outbreak.

“Sure. Andy, d’you mind?” Gwen pointed over her shoulder, toward the exit, and Jack took a deep breath. Ah. Socializing. Good. Great. He was a master at that by now. “We’re gonna head to lunch. Could you just watch the monitors for me? Let me know if anything changes, yeah?” ‘d already started moving to the exit. Andy opened his mouth as if to say something, then grimaced. Jack clapped him on the back as he passed.

“It’s good you’re helping her out. It’s overwhelming, but you don’t need to worry. She’s good at it.”

Andy nodded, his shoulders rising seemingly of their own volition to hide his neck. “Good at this, yeah. Good at listening? Maybe not.” The man turned away and skulked over to the computer system Tosh had set up. He stared at them all, but he didn’t sit.

Gwen walked back to him. “Jack? You coming?”

Jack watched the man for a bit. It seemed he wasn’t happy about only being there to help for a short period of time. He looked to Gwen and lowered his voice. “If you don’t think he can handle being a part of Torchwood, you’re going to have to wipe his memory. And soon. Before he gets any ideas.”

She waved him off with a snort. “Andy? He’s harmless. Got a couple of good hands to help out with, though, you know?” She rolled her eyes at the look her gave her. “Fine! I was gonna give it to him in a few weeks, when I found someone to be able to help out. I _suppose_ , since you’re back, I won’t be needing his immediate services anymore.” She grinned and turned away. He wasn’t able to return the smile. He had to tell her, but taking care of the imminent threat Andy posed came first. The man was going to be disoriented enough, losing so much of his memory to the pill. He looked over to Andy again. The man hadn’t moved. He still wasn’t sitting. Instead he leaned against the desk and glared at the monitors. He was a powder keg just waiting to explode. Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose. Should he have stayed? But just the thought of remaining for longer than a day or two had every muscle in him twitching. He didn’t want to be here. He couldn’t stand the reminders.

He left.

* * *

He and Gwen had a wonderful time catching up; he told her about the places he’d been, Venice and Warsaw and Porto. He strung sentences together about the people he’d met, the beautiful men and women and even a long story on the beautiful hermaphroditic alien whom he’d saved from a band of thugs in Lyon. Gwen gave him a soft smile and asked him if he’d had fun. He knew what she was really asking. He just smiled. “Yeah,” he said, and pretended it was the whole truth.

In return, Gwen told him about her and Rhys, how Rhys had taken to being the stay-at-home dad for their new daughter, Anwen. Anwen was a beautiful four-month-old and had mastered the art of gurgling and cooing. She’d been six pounds, four ounces at her birth and had nearly made Gwen get a Caesarian because she’d refused to come out. She loved pulling Gwen’s hair and sticking her fingers in Rhys’ eyes. Jack loved her. She told him about the renovations, about getting a few people in to clean the remnants, only to be retconned, then to get builders, all of whom were retconned, as well. It had taken ten months, and Gwen had gone into labor well before it had all been over. He could imagine Rhys freaking out as Gwen forced herself back to work. Jack breathed deep. Rhys would be angry at Jack for leaving her alone. Gwen, however, seemed to understand.

Eventually the conversation turned, as it always did, and as they strung out the last of their meal, Gwen leaned forward in her seat and put her elbows on the table. “So why did you come back now, huh?” At his blank look, she said, “you’ve been gone for over a year, Jack. And now you’re back, asking to have a tour. So what’s going on, eh?”

He leaned forward, too. “So there _is_ something happening. What?”

She rolled her eyes and sat back. “Nothing! Well, the weevils went wild for a bit. Remember how they lost it when Owen…” She waved her hand in the air, only to still when she reached that particular subject. They both winced. “Well. They went wild like that again. A bunch of them, all over the place, wandering like they just lost another king. And then there’ve been weird things about dreams, people hearing the voices of their lost loved ones. But it’s not Rift activity, I’ve checked it more times than I can count.”

He sat back, too. He hadn’t actually come for anything, but now it was starting to seem as if he’d returned at just the right time. “Not the Rift? Is there anything else that happens around the time they see these ‘ghosts’?”

She shook her head. “No. And it’s not ‘seeing,’ really. They hear voices, usually screams, or they feel a presence. I dunno, it’s just weird. The reports keep coming in, people thinking their loved ones are actually there, or something. Andy thought it would be something for us, but without a Rift connection, I was thinking it was nothing. Until you came back.” She sipped at her drink until she reached the bottom. He endured the empty sucking sound until she put it back down. “That’s why you’re back, yeah? There’s something to this, after all. Andy’s going to hold this over my head–”

“No, it’s not why I’m back. But it _does_ sound interesting.” He stood, his food – most of what he’d been given still left on his plate – forgotten. “So where did this all start? Who was the first person to be so disturbed they went to the police over it?”

She stood, too. “Really? Right now? You haven’t even finished your plate.”

He waved off the concern. “Come on, then. Show me the way. You’ve gotten my attention.”

“I’ve – wait, Jack!” She ran to catch up with him. And just like that, she was caught in his pace. Perfect. “I thought you already knew about this? Why’d you come back, if not for this?”

“It really was just to see how you’ve been. But a mystery!” he said, rubbing his hands together and letting his coat flap slightly behind him. “That’s even better. So. Tell me.”

And she did.

* * *

It turned out that, in the past few months, the reports of ghosts and familiar voices had turned up at an almost exponential rate. The sounds only lasted for a short time, and the feeling of their presence rose until it was apparently like having them back in the room. Some swore they could even hear someone moving around, heard doors opening and closing. Footsteps. Breathing. They also saw a light – though that one differed slightly; the light could be red, or blue, or pink, or even black.

Gwen had gone to several of these peoples’ homes, but she hadn’t found anything – no Rift activity, no scans or readings, no signs of any sort of disturbance.

That was what made him frown.

Cardiff was a hotspot of activity. Gwen had gone to no less than a dozen homes, and she hadn’t found a single thing – not one thing wrong in any of them. It was as if they lived in a perfectly quiet neighborhood on a perfectly dependable street. But this was _Cardiff_. There was no such thing as a safe street.

But sure enough, when he made his way from house to house, Gwen tagging along to act as buffer between him and the still-distraught families, he found nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He turned to Gwen after the fifth house. See lifted a brow. “Well? Nothing, am I right? It’s a dead end, isn’t it?”

He just looked at her. She really needed someone to help her, if something like this slipped past her. Her, of all people, who usually caught on to things so fast. Whoever she got, however, it wouldn’t be him. “Let’s take a look back at the base,” was all he said. He turned. They’d left her helper there too long, anyway.

They walked down the streets in a companionable silence for a few minutes, just taking in the crisp wind and the bustle of the people around them. They passed a few groups, each of them laughing and joking together. His heart pounded sickly at the sight. He knew how short, how fragile, those lives were. That laughter would fade into silence in a matter of days. Every time he grew complacent with the idea of time – with the thought that, if he only had a few years, they would last a few decades, at least – only to have those lives ripped from him once again, faster than a blink. If he didn’t end them himself. He sucked in a deep breath, whistling it past the thick feeling in his chest.

He’d already lived so long. In all that time, he’d met plenty of lovers, had plenty of children. He’d lost Estelle to the years, and then to the so-called fae. He lost Alice’s mother, Praehorian, Greg. So many. His children were older than him, if not already dead themselves. But never before had he chosen one of his descendants, looked them in the eye, and killed them. Steven was proof that immortals lived long enough to become demons. Ianto, Tosh, Owen – they were proof that immortals took people living ordinary lives and ruined them. Destroyed them. Look at the doctors’ companions. Rose, trapped in another dimension. Martha, joined the UNIT, her life as a nurse gone. Donna, memories stripped from her. Lives altered so drastically, simply by being in contact with the Doctor. And Jack’s loved ones, so warped by his presence that their lives became ticking time bombs.

He’d lost so many whom he’d called family. He’d lost more friends than he could count, even more who had wished to become lovers but had not been given the chance. Lovers. Children.

Because of all that experience, he knew without a doubt that the few short years he’d had knowing Ianto would never fade from his mind.

He stopped short. “Gwen.” He scowled. “Didn’t you teach that kid how to lock up behind him?”

Gwen stopped, too, her eyes wide. “I ordered him never to leave if I wasn’t there, or to let anyone inside. Just in case, you know?”

Well, shit.

The door to Torchwood swung wide. For a moment, he was actually relieved; he didn’t have to worry if Ianto was all right. The worst had already happened. But Andy was inside, and Torchwood itself, barely renovated after the bomb, had been breached. It was hardly a good sign.

He pulled out his gun. Behind him, he heard Gwen do the same.

The entrance to the office was dark when they stepped inside, Jack taking the lead. The light from outside shined a conical swath on the corner of the counter and the wall behind it. The counter where Ianto had once stood cast shadows within shadows within the deeper bowls of the room. Jack kicked the door open wide. No one. The door leading down into the hub was closed.

He checked behind the counter while Gwen moved toward the door. He hissed at her as she made to open it. She rolled her eyes. “I’m not pregnant anymore,” she said. “You were gone too long for that one.”

“Yeah. Now you just have a baby to look after.” He gently moved her out of the way and opened the door himself.

The darkness of the false tourist office continued down below. The lights here should have been on. They were always on.

He hurried down the stairs.

Emergency light switches could be found all over the hub; he snapped one on as he made it to the bottom of the stairs, Gwen taking the steps a bit slower than him, cognizant of her mortality. The lights flickered for a moment, then burned a dim orange. The shadows in the hub stretched wide and long. His gaze swept over the room; Myfanwy flew above. It called out to him as he looked up toward his – Gwen’s – office, down toward the medical lab. That was when he saw the body crumpled on the floor by the computers.

“Andy!” Gwen’s voice punched into the room, and she ran past him to the downed man. Jack cursed under his breath and followed, keeping his weapon up.

She dropped to the floor beside the man – and yes, it was Andy, his bright copper hair smushed against his face. He looked at the man’s chest as Gwen reached her fingers toward his neck. “He’s alive,” he said.

She looked up at him, then down at Andy’s chest when Jack nodded down to it. She sighed in relief as it rose and fell. “What happened?” She looked around the room, her hands still around Andy as if to shield him.

He shook his head. He hadn’t heard anything since they’d stepped inside. Whoever had broken in might have already found what they had been looking for and left. He and Gwen had been gone for hours. Still, he wasn’t ready to lower his guard. He nodded toward the back of the building. Gwen nodded, and he stood, ready to check the area.

Something in the med bay tinked against the floor.

“Shit.”

The curse came from the wall beside the ramp, down below their line of sight. Jack turned his gun. “All right, buddy. Come out. Now.”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on. No point getting angry, is there?” The accent wasn’t Welsh. Jack saw a hand wave up above the edge of the floor, beneath the bars of the railing. “Hold on a second.”

“ _Now.”_

The man cursed again. Jack heard something scrape, then the clacking of what sounded like a thousand marbles. Then the intruder stood. Jack was left blinking as he took in the man standing before him, hands up in the air. He looked around – _dammit_ – around Ianto’s age, no older than twenty-eight or twenty-nine. Yet the similarities ended there, and at the pale complexion of his skin. His was skinny, nearly a beanpole, with clothes that hung off him like blankets and fingers as long as the Doctor’s. “Hi! Hello. Nice-” Myfanwy shrieked up above them, “-uh, place you got here. Did you know there’s a dinosaur in your underground lair?”

“What are you doing here?” Jack asked.

“No, sod that, what did you do to Andy?” Gwen asked, still clutching the unconscious man.

The man looked down at them. Jack raised his gun until the man looked back at him. “Whoa, don’t get mad at me! He’s the one who pulled a gun on me.”

“You’re trespassing on private property.” Jack shifted just enough to put Gwen behind him. “How did you get in here?”

“What, like it was locked?” Jack glared. The man rolled his eyes. “I suppose movie references are going to swim right past you. Look. There was a tourist place. I stepped inside, there was no one there, I saw a door, I opened it, I came down. Your friend – and you, by the way – pulled a gun on me immediately. I freaked and knocked him out.”

“And then hid from us,” Gwen said.

“Uh, yeah. Gun?” The man made a point to look at Jack’s. “No point getting mad at me for that, is there? And wouldn’t you prefer to call the cops than shoot me? Please?”

“No need for that.” Gwen made to stand, but Jack didn’t let her get up. Unlike her, he hadn’t dropped his guard. “Jack?”

“There’s no need, because he’s lying.” He lifted his chin. “The door wasn’t unlocked. It’s never unlocked. No to mention the vault door, which you left wide open. So why don’t you try telling us the truth?”

The man sighed. He lowered his hands to his hair, flicked the long strands back. He’d pulled some shaky ponytail that had managed to catch only half of the dirty blond hair on his scalp. He scratched the stubble on his chin and stuck a hand into the pocket of his too-large jeans. “Thanks, but I didn’t lie, you know. I said I opened the door. You _assumed_ that meant it had been unlocked.” He shrugged. “But hey. Semantics, right?” He looked around. “This place.” He pointed all over. “It’s weird. New, but it has a really old feel. Like, a sewage feel or something. And what the hell is that thing?” He pointed to the rift monitor.

“But that’s impossible.” Finally, Gwen laid Andy back down and stood up. She still did not reach for her weapon. “No one can break in to here.”

“Once again, that’s not what I said.” The man grinned. Despite the stubble and giant clothes and – was that a backpack? – his teeth were bright white and perfectly straight, destroying the well-developed illusion of a man down on his luck. His eyes, too, carried something a little too knowing. The man’s fingers moved in his pocket.

“Show your hand!” Jack shouted.

The man grinned. He pulled his hand out. Within it sat a small, brown-ish stone.

“What–” Gwen cut herself off when a shriek rent the air around them. Jack’s heart flipped. Gwen’s eyes widened. “Tosh?”

“So sorry about busting in,” the man said, his grin widening, “but I never could resist the chance to add to my collection.”

“Collection?” Jack raised his hand, even though there was no light or wind. It was more as if… as if he sensed something.

Tosh. He sensed Tosh’s presence.

“Wreak havoc,” the man said. Jack felt Tosh’s presence pass by him. Despite the danger of the man in front of him, he turned to follow the invisible sensation. The computers at the hub flared to life. Something snapped along the cords trailing down from the computers. Alarms sounded in the hub. Myfanwy cried out and took to the sky.

He snapped his gaze back to the man. “What have you done?!”

The man just kept smiling. “I’d best be on my way. I don’t want to get locked in here with you.” He started walking sedately away, both hands sliding back into his pockets, as if he didn’t have a gun trained on him. “Oh, fair warning. Killing me won’t save that Vestige.”

Jack’s finger froze on the trigger. “What?”

Gwen ran to the terminals. They sparked as she neared. She covered her face with her arms with a yelp. “That Vestige. I got it from here, so I can only assume you recognize it. Name yourself,” he said, his voice altering as if speaking to someone else. The man tilted his head to the side and said, simply, “Sato Toshiko. Japanese, then.” The man focused back on Jack. “Do you want her soul to wander forever?”

Jack’s breath stilled in his chest.

The man chuckled. “Didn’t think so.” He raised one hand – his empty one – and gave a short wave. “Wonderful to meet you both. Maybe think about paint or something, yeah? Get some color in this dreary place.”

Gwen finally got to the terminal hub, but as she did, information scrolled like lightning across the screens. Even at that insane pace, Tosh would have been able to read it. “Jack – Jack, the lockdown has been initiated!”

“Turn it off!” He raced after the man. Every step the man took, the clacking accompanied him. Like marbles – or precious stones. “Stop!”

“Not likely!” the man called out. He didn’t run, but he did quicken his pace.

“Stop!” He ran up, catching up to the man just as he crossed past the vault door. “You said you… _found her_ here.” The man raised a brow in acknowledgment. “That means she didn’t get you in.” Jack’s lips thinned. “Who did?”

The man grinned. “You’re quick.” He tilted his head. The vault door slowly slid closed. “It was a soul I found amid countless others. There were _a lot_ there. Easy pickings.” The man shrugged. “Apparently his name was Ianto Jones.”

The vault door locked into place with a clang.


	2. Chapter Two

Five minutes later, and the feeling of Tosh’s presence disappeared from the room. The hub was immediately restored.

Gwen shivered in front of the computers, having fought a losing battle against Tosh’s… soul? Vestige. He had no idea what that meant. “Jack.” Gwen’s head, bent over the consoles, raised. Her eyes breathed fire at him. “What in the _hell_ was that?”

He shook his head. He’d been pacing since he’d finished moving Andy to the new couch, the man seemingly uninjured but still unconscious. “I don’t know.” The man had said Ianto. Ianto’s soul was trapped in one of those stones? The man had, what? Done the same thing to Ianto that he had to Tosh, forcing what was left of him to do the man’s bidding? He punched the wall. Gwen jumped. _“Dammit!”_

Several moments passed, but slowly Gwen came to him and touched his arm. “Jack.” He looked at her. The fire had faded, tempered by the shine of something he himself battled. “He said Ianto.”

He grimaced. “I heard.”

“But does that mean he has Ianto’s soul, same as Tosh?” Her fingers trembled on the lining of his coat. “What does that mean, anyway? What’s a ‘Vestige’?”

He calmed his breathing. When they didn’t have any information, their first job was always to _get_ _some_. So that was what they were going to do. “He said he went to a place with a lot of dead. Check ours. Cemeteries. The places Grey hit. Anywhere where there’s been more than five dead. Take a bunch of readings with a bunch of scanners.” He stopped, even as she moved. “Take the ghost device, if it isn’t broken. I’m going to look into the reports about ghosts again.”

Gwen paused on her way out the now operational door. She turned wide eyes on him. “Oh, Jack, you don’t think that–”

“Just go, Gwen. Don’t go looking for him just yet, and if you see him, don’t engage. We don’t want him running too far or causing any more damage.” With the souls of Ianto and Tosh, that man had enough to take down Torchwood. Depending on what it was he could do – and, at the least, it seemed he could access knowledge from the deceased he collected and make them do certain tasks for him – then perhaps Torchwood wasn’t even the extent of what he could destroy.

He had Ianto. He had Tosh. He had their souls in the palms of his hands. Literally.

He gritted his teeth. But not for long. He wouldn’t allow it.

“Go,” he said again. “Take readings, see if there’s anything we can pick up. And Gwen.” He looked at her. “Anything you don’t pick up is just as important as what you do.”

She nodded. “I’m on it, Jack.”

The tone of her voice said she was being considerate. Of his feelings. Because she knew. How could she not? He moved to the computer terminals, his fingers sweeping over the keys as he called up the reports. He sent a glance toward Andy. The man had yet to so much as move. He tapped on the terminal for a moment, then went over to check on the man.

His chest still rose and fell, and there were no signs of any external wounds. That didn’t mean, however, that something horrible wasn’t happening within. With a grunt, he lifted the man all over again. The ramp made the trek to the medical bay much easier, and he deposited the man on one of the cots in far less time, with no awkward attempts to see where his feet were heading. He checked the man’s body for anything that might be within. Nothing. Anything missing? No. Anything in too high a supply? Nope. From everything he could see, the man was in perfect health. He could have fainted from sheer fright, from what Jack could see.

Ah. Except for… that. Jack frowned at the screen. Andy had been retconned. For how long? There was enough in him that he would have lost more than a few hours, though thankfully no more than a day or two. He frowned. Andy would have been guarding this place. The man would have likely pulled out his gun, just like he had when he’d seen Jack. Which meant this couldn’t have been from Tosh’s knowledge; the man wouldn’t have gotten it in time. Then… Ianto? But how would he have gotten it in Andy before…?

It was a question that would have to wait until Andy woke up. He could learn more from the footage of the hub. For now, the best they could do was make him comfortable.

Finally satisfied that there was nothing more he could do for the man but wait and watch, he returned to the reports. He scoured them for anything new, but all he could find was the usual – a scream, a presence. Footsteps and creaking floorboards, now signs of an actual, living person in the house more than a ghost roaming the halls. It all sounded similar to what they’d just experienced. Tosh’s sudden voice, caught in a scream before it cut off. The presence. Strange, ghostly happenings. How many times had they heard about ghosts jumping into computers or televisions? Maybe it hadn’t been ghosts at all, but these so-called Vestiges.

He needed to learn what those were.

The very word was a clue, he was sure. ‘A trace of something that is disappearing or no longer exists.’ He had to inhale sharply to keep himself from reacting to that one.

He read several of the reports as he pulled up the cameras of the hub. He checked the readings from the last ten minutes as the cameras played. He watched the man stand up – the camera where he’d been hiding had been offline, and he could only think the man had used Tosh or Ianto for that, as well – and speak to them. He looked perfectly at ease, even as he pretended to be afraid of Jack’s gun. And then the stone.

Jack paused the camera and zoomed in. His lips thinned.

The scanning system recognized the stone as a tiger’s eye. Nothing alien or unusual about it, save what had happened next. Still, he looked up what he could on the stone. Tiger’s eye was a type of metamorphic rock lucky enough to have quartz intergrowths. Silica compound, just above average hardness. Normal mineral. He glared at the text in front of him, then went to less reputable sources. Immediately, he was inundated with information about the gem’s healing properties. He’d always been skeptical about such things before, but this time he read page after page, his lips thinning more and more as time passed. Finally, he let the video playback continue.

The man looked frumpy in the video, even moreso than he had in real life, since, in real life, Jack had been able to see how clean that long span of hair was, how freshly laundered the huge clothes had been. Even though the clothes were clearly aged, they were kept clean. His fingers didn’t tremble; his body didn’t quake. He went from trying to dissolve the situation to attacking without any middle ground – used, then, to such situations.

And then Tosh. He could see when he and Gwen first noticed the feel of her in the room; they both tensed, shifted. They would be hearing that scream. He played it back, letting the audio feedback crackle through. Yup. There it was. The sound that shouldn’t have existed.

The scanner had sent out strange readings at this moment – it was as if there was suddenly a fifth person in the room, discounting the three conscious and fourth unconscious members facing off against one another. He checked the Rift scanner – nothing. This truly wasn’t Rift related.

But there was definitely something there. He adjusted the settings, changed them until they were searching for soundwaves, alien particles, even ultraviolet. Nothing. He frowned. Then, going on instinct more than anything else, he searched for electro-magnetic frequencies.

Bingo.

Too many people used EMF’s without really knowing why. They made excuses like ‘there’s energy in your body – where does it go when you die?’ or ‘ghosts still interact with the world, and that interaction leaves a pulse.’ In reality, it seemed people might have been reading, not left over energy, but whatever this Vestige was. Potentially the person’s soul.

He closed his eyes for several moments. When he opened them, his breathing was steady again, but his pulse still beat a mad rush beneath his ribs.

All right. Enough thinking of that.

When before there had been nothing on the screen save his and Gwen’s reactions and the visible reactions of the computer hub, now he could see a distinct outline – god help him, the outline looked exactly like Tosh, her height, her gait, her face – limned in bluish-white light as it ran over to the computers and began working. When Gwen went over to the computers, she passed right through the specter. He watched Gwen shiver, watched goosebumps rise on her arms as she struggled to wrestle control from the… from the ghost.

The Vestige. And whatever a Vestige was, it was most certainly a part of their friend. It hunched over the computers the way Tosh would when she was working against the clock, its gaze slipping back and forth between monitors. That zap snapped across the wires. The readings flashed up again at that instant, this time reacting to something in the Rift monitoring system. It blipped.

He stared at the screen, then back down at the readings. There had been nothing from the Rift. There was no reason for there to be a spike in the system – it hadn’t been reading anything from the Rift to the computer, so… perhaps something to the Rift…

A few minutes later, the communications system popped to life. He looked down at one of the microphones and snatched it up. “Gwen.”

“Hey. I’m at Cathay’s. I took a bunch of readings around town, so we have plenty of normal readings to compare to these.”

Jack checked the terminals. There was, indeed, new information set up. He pulled it up and looked at it. “You have an EMF scanner?”

Gwen snorted. “You think these are normal ghosts?”

“I think there’s a reason people have been using EMF scanners,” he said. The computer showed charts of activity, but none of it matched what had happened in the hub. “How about the ghost device? Did it pick up anything?”

She cleared her throat. “A couple of things. Along the street – a car accident. An old one; the cars looked like they were from the seventies or eighties. And another, just outside the jewelry store. A thief was running out of the building. Gunshot wound.” She cleared her throat. He closed his eyes. He was about to apologize for making her see those scenes when she continued. “I took readings around those places, too. No EMF scanner, but I got everything else I could think of. Anything useful?”

He shook his head, even though she couldn’t hear it. “No. Nothing. But I think I see where you’re talking about – you spent more time in a couple of places than anywhere else. We can go back over those places with the EMF later.”

“If they’re even still there later,” she said. He didn’t say anything to that. There was nothing _to_ say; while they were trying to figure out what was going on, that man was continuing his own path. If he was traveling Cardiff searching for these Vestiges, then he could be grabbing who knew how many while he and Gwen chased their own tails.

“Just do what you can.” He ended the conversation there for the moment and turned back to the monitors. His gaze caught on the sight of Tosh’s spiritual form bent over the computers. “We’ll get you back,” he promised. He got back to work.

* * *

“Okay,” Gwen said, the vault door rolling open as she stepped inside. “Do you want to start, or should I?”

He barely acknowledged her existence. He stared at the readings one more time, certain that he must have gotten something wrong, that he was seeing this because he wanted it too much. But finally, he stood back with a grin. “Come take a look at this.”

She crossed over the length of the hub down to the computer terminal. He stepped away for the first time in a number of hours, allowing her to see what he’d found.

Her gaze fell immediately to the picture of Tosh freeze-framed on one of the computer monitors. She squinted at it, leaned in, and gasped. “Is that real?” She touched the screen as if somehow she could touch the figure within.

“It’s real.”

She looked at him, then back at the screen. “But that means that Ianto…” She bit her lip, cutting herself off before she went further. Too little, too late.

“Yeah.” He stepped beside her and pointed to a different screen, desperate to get the conversation moving someplace else. “See this?”

She looked where he pointed and frowned. “Why’d you pull this up?”

“I didn’t.” She looked at him, then at Andy, still troublingly unconscious on the cot. “Tosh did.”

* * *

They hurried to the archives, lights flipped on. He looked around, surprised at first to see a completely different layout. He frowned over at Gwen. She shrugged. “I couldn’t remember it all!” she said, defensive. She hurried through the rows of what Jack soon noted to be predominantly empty caches. “And there wasn’t much left to remember, honestly. Most of the stuff was destroyed when… you know.”

He knew.

“So while she was locking us in the hub, she was also searching for this?” Gwen asked. “How would she know it still existed?”

“Dunno. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she just hoped.” Jack scanned the locked shelves, the combinations that he no longer knew. He couldn’t see Ianto in this strange new space, working on the files or cataloging some new item. Somehow the grief felt worse with that knowledge; this place was too new, too strange. It had left Ianto behind.

“Well, either way, I guess that means we got lucky. For once.”

He tried on a chuckle. It didn’t sit well. “I don’t know if luck has anything to do with it.” Gwen stopped by the locker Tosh had indicated through the computers. She unlocked it and pulled out the glove. Jack took a deep breath. “The real question is: is she giving us some clue? Or telling us to use it?”

Gwen bit her lip. “Maybe she doesn’t know she got a normal funeral.”

He winced. Using the glove on those recently killed kept them from seeing their body in a wretched state of decomposition. Someone who’d been buried for over two years would not be looking pretty. “Whether she knew or not, we’re not doing that. Let her rest in peace, if she can.” Gwen looked relieved. “Is there anyone else that we can use? Someone who might know more about ghosts, or electromagnetic waves, or something?”

Gwen shook her head. Bit her lip. “There is one other person,” she said, in the voice of someone not willing to admit any such thing.

Jack’s blood chilled. “No.”

“We didn’t give him a… a proper funeral. Well, no. He got one. But his will said he wanted to be buried in the vaults. He… with most of them destroyed in the explosion, his is – was – one of the first placed inside.” She cleared her throat. “Those nearest the ground were actually all right. Your brother included.”

He closed his eyes. A grief he’d carried leveled at that last bit of information. Still. “We are not waking him up. We’re not putting him through that.”

“But Jack–”

“No. There must be something else.” He ran a hand over his jaw and wracked his brain. “She wouldn’t be telling us to wake her up. She hated using the glove. It could simply be a message.”

“That she’s being forced to do something she hates?” Gwen’s face crumpled at the very thought.

“No. She might just be trying to tell us what she is. Resurrected.” Resurrected without the power of the Rift. But she’d accessed the Rift to send them that message. Which meant there had to be something else. Right?

It was Tosh. What would she say if she were with them?

“She accessed the Rift when she showed us this. She didn’t have to.” So, what? Use the Rift with the glove? Use the glove with the Rift? Or – he gasped. “No. Wait. That’s genius! Oh, Tosh, you’re amazing!” He shouted it to the ceiling, then raced forward and grabbed the glove from Gwen’s fingers. “Gwen, think about it,” he said, taking in the drawn brows and parted lips. The glove was cold in his hands. “She didn’t just tell us about the glove. She was telling us about the _stones_.” He took in Gwen’s blank face and grinned, racing back through the corridors to the main hub. Myfanwy still hadn’t returned. Gwen followed after, his pace too fast for her to keep up. He stopped in front of the terminals and started on the keyboard immediately.

“What’s going on? What did she try to tell us, Jack?”

“The glove was just the message. She probably couldn’t go completely against orders, so she couldn’t help us openly. But she _could_ leave us a hint.” He checked the Rift and made a small crowing sound. “We can’t trace the surges of energy because they have nothing to do with the Rift. How could they? It’s earth stones and earth people. Nothing to do with the Rift. Right?”

“Everything weird has to do with the Rift,” Gwen muttered.

“ _Exactly.”_ He grinned at her, even though she still had that blank look on her face. “Oh. Well. I guess you were being facetious. But you’re still right.” He pointed to one of the monitors. “There. See? We couldn’t find anything odd about his time in here with us, or any with Tosh, or when anyone had been picked up from around town. But see that? The Rift _is_ reacting. Very slightly – almost as if it’s trying to get _away_ from these moments. See?”

“They’re tiny,” she said, leaning over his shoulder to squint at the screen, “but yeah, I see them. So small they didn’t set anything off, and too different to, anyway. Like the bits that stole people away.”

“Like the blips that warned of the water hag,” he said. She nodded. “Even looking for them, they hardly look different than the normal fluctuations of the Rift. Except for this.” He brought up the coordinating times and places for the complaints of ghosts. “Same place and time.”

“How did we miss this?” she asked.

“We didn’t. We looked right at them. We just dismissed them because we were expecting something more obvious.”

“Something more like a positive Rift reaction,” she murmured, and he made a sound of agreement.

She was scowling at the screen, still angry they’d missed it, but he was grinning from ear to ear. They might have missed it before, but thanks to Tosh, they were on the right track again. And the news just kept getting better. “That man said he couldn’t resist adding to his collection,” he said, looking at her. She turned her gaze to him, but the blank look still looked a bit too confused. “How much do you want to bet we won’t be the last place he breaks into today?”

Gwen’s face transformed into a bright grin. After several moments, she cocked her head and said, “but I thought you didn’t want us to engage with him?”

“Not until we knew what we were getting into, no.” He started searching for any sign of those same downward blips on the Rift activity scanner. “He’s holding the souls – or, well, _Vestiges_ of their souls, I’d imagine – hostage. He said stopping him wouldn’t free Tosh from the prison he’d encased her in. The next thing we need to learn is how he got her in there, and through that, hopefully, how we can get her back out.”

“And everyone else he’s taken,” she said, her voice hard, the tone still making it clear who else she was talking about.

Jack grimaced. Yeah. He would get Ianto back, too.

* * *

Andy finally shifted on his cot.

Jack had explained the situation to Gwen a few hours before, and they’d paused in their search for information on the man and the Vestiges to watch the feed from when the man had entered the hub.

They weren’t surprised to see, with the EM filter in place, a shifting blue-white form open the way down to the hub. That didn’t stop the wrench in Jack’s heart at seeing Ianto, stiff-backed and strapping, even as electricity, do as the man quietly ordered. By the time the man was slipping into the hub, Jack’s hands were clenched into fists. Ianto had preceded the man, clopping his way down the stairs the way he did when he was in a hurry. On the next camera, Ianto headed over to where the coffee should have been. When he saw the space empty, he paused. Jack had to close his eyes for a moment or risk grabbing the terminal and throwing it.

Andy had taken no notice of Ianto, and had instead turned to the sound of the opening vault door. The figure of Ianto curled its fingers and grabbed a cup of water.

By the time the man had entered the room, Ianto, untouchable in his captured form, had tilted Andy’s head back and forced the drugged water down Andy’s throat. Andy crumpled just as the man came down to inspect the hub at large. He’d whistled, then turned to the terminals and the ramp down to the med bay. “All right,” he’d said, pulling the backpack off his back. “Which home would you like, hmm?” As an afterthought, he’d added, “oh, Ianto. Come back now.”

Ianto Jones, still stiff, clearly trying to fight whatever compulsion held him, faded from view. Whatever he returned to, the man didn’t take it out for Jack to see.

Now, hours later, Andy groaned louder and grabbed his head. Gwen helped him sit up, already pressing a glass of water into his hands. “Ow! What in the world happened? Feel like my head’s been trampled.” Andy looked up and did a double-take. “What the? Oi!” He struggled to get up. One finger pointed at Jack. “What are you doing here? Huh?”

Jack sighed. “Explain it to him, Gwen. I’ve got work to do.”

He played over the next part of the video, the part he and Gwen had gone over at least a dozen times as they’d searched through both Earth’s and the Rift’s history, searching for something similar to what they were dealing with.

The next part held the moment when Tosh’s soul had been taken.

The man had bent down at the waist, had played his hand across the floor – exactly where Tosh had lain. As if he could see it. Her. Could see it even better than Jack could. He’d opened his pack. The clacking sound had been caught even on the audio of their cameras. Inside the man’s pack were countless bags filled with gems and stones, some semiprecious, some simple obsidian and granite. Some were likely worth more than the cost of the hub’s reconstruction. Several more tiny bags, like those to carry dice to a tabletop RPG game, sat in the corners of the pack, each labeled in shorthand – something only Ianto could read for them. No doubt they told the man what lay inside each one, and likely who lay within _those_.

After rummaging through his collection for several minutes, the man had finally pulled out the tiger’s eye. Oddly, Jack noted there were two other tiger’s eye in the bag, both slightly smaller than the one the man pulled out. The man sighed. “Almost didn’t have one for you, sweetling.” He held the stone out with one hand and touched his chest with the other. A green and pink glow swirled around them, a burst of light so bright it cast eerie shadows on the walls. The tiger’s eye glimmered in the man’s hand, orange and brown. It all shimmered together, an alien color blotching the gray interior of the hub. The tiger’s eye glowed, and electricity sparked off the computers and lights. The cameras momentarily went out. By the time they came back on, the glow was gone, and the man was rummaging in the backpack for something, only to stop and turn to the sound of the vault doors opening. He cursed and zipped the pack closed, tugging it with him to the underside of the stairs leading down to the med bay. He looked at his new acquisition and said something before stuffing it in his pocket. Jack jumped when he heard a sound he hadn’t caught before, as he strained his ears to hear past Gwen’s and Andy’s quiet conversation.

The soft clacking of two stones hitting each other.

The figure of Tosh rose from the med bay and raced to the computer, shorting out the camera showing the man’s hiding spot. From there, Jack and Gwen knew the story.

The stone holding Ianto had been in the man’s pocket all along.

He looked to Gwen. Andy was still holding his head, though he was now sitting and drinking on his own. This thief had managed, with only Tosh and Ianto – two exceedingly special people, mind, but only two people – this man had managed to break into Torchwood, take down a cop, steal a soul, and walk out of Torchwood with its remaining members locked inside the hub while he made his getaway. Just two people out of who knew how many, and he’d managed to take down one of the most powerful agencies in the world.

He leaned onto the console. Who knew what this man could do if he got away with what he was doing? Yet, even with that motivation in front of him, all he could see was that electric-blue form of Ianto, fists clenched, shoulders stiff, back ramrod straight, as he waited for another order from this stranger.

Dead, and he was a slave.

Fire burned in his chest. He wouldn’t let this happen. He wouldn’t.

“Jack? You all right?”

He stood straight, his gaze trapped on Ianto. “Yeah. Let’s get ready. We’re going to find out where this guy’s headed, and when night comes, we’re taking him down and getting Tosh and Ianto back.” He turned. “Rest up, Andy. We’re going to need all hands on deck.”

The man’s eyes widened. He grinned. “Really?”

“Not too much, Andy,” Gwen said, patting his shoulder and looking at him severely. She looked at Jack even more severely. “You just got retconned; you’re not gonna be up for much for a while.”

“He’ll be fine,” Jack said. He nodded to the man. “Eat, sleep, do whatever. But when night comes, I expect you to be ready to head out.”

Andy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

He grinned. Maybe they’d been too dismissive of this guy. He could work out just fine.

He turned back around. Ianto. If Jack could see his facial features – if there had been enough density in that blue-white form to manage it – he was certain he would see gritted teeth. Ianto was supposed to be gone. No longer suffering. That was supposed to be Jack’s one solace in all of this.

Whoever this guy was, he would pay for taking that away from them.


	3. Chapter Three

They managed to track him.

They hadn’t been wrong to think the man would be unperturbed by the events of the day. He sought out two more souls before nightfall, showing them a path aimed toward the west side of the city. They geared up before the end of the night.

“He’ll be expecting us to show up,” Jack said, even as he checked his gun and stuffed it in its holster. Andy had already done his checks, and had traded in his ostentatious vest for a simple suit. He didn’t clean up as well as Ianto, but Jack could appreciate the effort. His eyes still looked a bit dazed; he’d forgotten the past thirty hours, thanks to the retcon, and though they’d tried to help him remember, his mind remained blank. “He’s not stupid enough to think we’d just let him go. Andy, remember our warning. Anything that happens tonight could trigger your lost memories. It’ll be confusing. Freaky.” He waggled his eyebrows. “But no matter what happens, you gotta focus on the job in front of you. Okay?”

Andy nodded. “Yeah. I got it.”

Jack didn’t know that he did – retcon was a tricky business – but they didn’t have any more time to waste worrying about it. The guy wanted to be part of Torchwood? He had to show his stuff. “All right, then. Gwen, you ready?”

She checked her headpiece and nodded. “Ready, Jack.”

Jack double-checked Andy, but it seemed the man’s reticence over Jack’s return had disappeared with the knowledge that he’d been taken down so easily. “Good. Let’s get going, then, shall we?”

They’d managed to find CCTV footage of both places where the man had grabbed the two souls. The same strange green-and-pink glow burned around the man; on the street where the second had been taken – “that’s where I saw the car accident!” Gwen had exclaimed – people had stopped and stared. A couple dropped a couple of coins into the bag the man had produced a brown quartz from. The glow turned into a brownish quality, muted like water, and then they saw what they had missed with Tosh: the spark of light turned white, then black, and then the blue-white form of an older man got up from a prone position on the ground. The CCTV footage couldn’t pick up sound, but the man holding the quartz was definitely talking. The passersby who had just been handing the man change now skirted carefully around him. No matter what he did, the homeless look guaranteed people wouldn’t ask any questions. Clever.

After a time, the young man had stood up and put the quartz away, pocketing the change inside and marking the bag with a small Sharpie.

The same had been done in the next area, only this one turned out to be a young child. Gwen had taken that one even harder than Jack; Jack had visions of Stephen, but Gwen likely had visions of Anwen. Either way, it had galled them into action. They’d scoured the CCTV footage until they could trace the man’s movements. He’d holed up in a small hotel, so small the hotel only had fake cameras. What he’d done since leaving the street, they hadn’t a clue.

The Plass was nearly empty; sundown had come, and most had turned in for supper or telly or their evening jobs. They were the only people walking around in a group. Not that they wouldn’t stand out, anyway. Jack led the way to the SUV, replaced after the one that had been stolen from Ianto, and took the wheel while Gwen took the passenger seat. Andy grumbled a bit as he got into the backseat.

They drove in silence for a long period of time. Jack, for his part, didn’t have the ability to hold small talk at the moment. His hands clenched and unclenched around the wheel, his mind skipping back and forth between the vision he’d seen on the hub’s screens and the last time he’d held Ianto in his arms.

By the time they reached the hotel, Jack had worked himself into a foul mood.

They parked in front of the hotel – it would be more suspicious to enter a hotel after walking than to come in a vehicle (not to mention how little patience Jack had left at the moment) – and headed into the building. The receptionist looked up from the magazine she was reading on the counter and opened her mouth to give them the usual bland greeting. Jack held up his hand. “We’re not here to check in. There’s a man staying here. Long, scruffy hair, big clothes, huge backpack. That grizzled jaw look. Seen him?”

She cleared her throat and stood straight, pushing her braid back from where it had fallen over her shoulder. “Uh, we don’t give out information about–”

“We’re Torchwood,” Gwen said, stepping up next to Jack. “And this is urgent. We need to know which room he’s staying in. Please.”

At the sound of their affiliation, the woman’s eyes went wide. She scooted over to her computer and clicked on the mouse. “Right,” she said, no longer arguing. A few moments later, and they had the number and the key. Jack took the lead, heading to the elevator. “Gwen, Andy, take the stairs. Make yourselves as quiet as possible. We want to get those stones without waking him up.”

Who knew if he had spares, or some sort of knowledge, or even some sort of ability. What they _did_ know was that he needed to have the stone to force the Vestiges to do as he commanded. His power would be severely cut if they took the stones. Bonus: the souls would also be free of his machinations. They might even be able to find a way to free them entirely.

The elevator was empty as they headed up, third floor button bright after Jack pressed it. Jack checked his watch. Eleven. It wasn’t too late for there to be people walking around, grabbing ice or something. He frowned and pulled out his gun.

“Jack. We’re heading up.”

He touched his headpiece. “Good. I’m nearly there. Remember. Keep _quiet._ ”

“We got it, Jack.” Gwen sounded annoyed. Oh, well. She’d get over it.

A soft ding, and the elevator stopped. The doors opened to reveal a hallway as empty as the lobby and the elevator had been. He held his gun out and searched the area. Red-and-orange tiles led down the hall. The wallpaper looked a bit faded, a bit more yellow than the original flowers had likely meant to be. Sconces lit the walls every meter or so.

Jack pulled out his EMF meter. As soon as he turned it on, the thing started going off. He hissed. “He’s got something waiting,” he said, his voice carefully low.

“So about what we expected.”

“Yeah.”

He doubted being quiet would stop whatever those Vestiges were from finding him, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious, anyway. He made his way down the hall slowly, his gaze flicking to catch the numbers on the doors as he passed. He needed 318. They started at 301, and he had to turn right to reach the right door. He murmured quiet instructions to Gwen and Andy as he moved; best if they knew where to go if he ended up getting into a fight.

Nothing attacked him, however, even though he waited a few moments outside the room. A few tense moments later, he leaned in toward the door.

And heard something moving about inside.

He cursed. “Gwen, go around back! I think he knows we’re here.”

She cursed, too, much louder than him. “On it!”

He slipped the key into the lock and gently pushed the door open. The lights were off, one bed unmade. And empty. The bathroom door was open, the light off. He raced inside and found the window open. He ran to it. The man was running off down the street, pack slung over his shoulder. “Gwen! He’s heading to the front of the hotel!”

“We’re there, Jack! I see him!” He heard her footsteps pound against the pavement, but couldn’t see her from his angle. He cursed again and put his gun in its holster. Then he hoisted himself up on the window. He looked down. It was far enough that there was little chance of not injuring himself. How the hell had the man gotten down without getting hurt? Well, he would be useless if he got himself injured trying to jump down after him. With another curse, he spun around to make his way down the long way.

The EMF reader went nuts. Something slammed against his chest. He bounced against the wall.

He grunted at the impact. Whatever had shoved him was strong. He looked around, but saw nothing. Nothing moved, nothing cracked. Nothing shone in blue-white light – humans couldn’t see things like that. If only they had a great white shark on their team, maybe they’d be able to pinpoint where these Vestiges were.

He reached out, trying to touch whatever – whoever – was there. Nothing. Yet he couldn’t move from his spot against the wall by the window. He took a deep breath. “Ianto?”

Nothing. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Electromagnetic currents couldn’t talk.

Unless electromagnetic currents – Vestiges – had greater power than their original counterparts, this wasn’t Tosh, either. But if it wasn’t them, then it could still be any countless number of people. It could be a pro wrestler from the eighties, or a strong man from a circus. Anyone. Even, potentially, an alien.

He waited for a blow, but nothing came. After a few moments, the force pressing against him backed away. Was the man’s power over these Vestiges based on proximity? Did his control weaken if he was too far away from them? Or had the man gotten away, thus serving the purpose of calling the Vestige out to begin with?

The answer came a moment later when Gwen’s voice crackled over the headset. “Shit! I’ve lost him. Jack, where are you?”

“Still in the building,” he answered grimly. “Seems our new friend didn’t want me chasing after him. I just learned how Andy must’ve felt when he’d been held still by air, at least.”

“One of those… things? Those Vestiges? You saw one?”

“Saw is a strong word,” he said, leaving the wall and taking a few tentative steps further. Nothing grabbed him or shoved him back, so he walked to the door. “I’d say it was more like ‘felt.’ I’m gonna return the key and take a closer look at this place. Maybe he left something behind. Gwen, I want you and Andy to follow the CCTV footage. Find out where he went.”

“Got it. How will you get back to the hub?”

He snorted. “The same way we did before cars, Gwen. I’ll walk.”

  
  


!i!i!i!

  
  


The man hadn’t left anything of importance behind; all Jack had managed to find was a ripped page from the hotel’s notepad that read out a list of foodstuffs. He would check to see if it was a code, but since all the things on the list were non-perishables, he wasn’t going to hold his breath. It was likely just plans for provisioning.

The bathroom held a half-full miniature bottle of shampoo and an opened bar of soap. The man had showered. Anything else he may have done had been cleaned up along with the rest of his things. He spent a little time checking under the beds and behind the nightstand, just in case the man had dropped something somewhere, but he came up with nothing. Not surprising. The way this man was keeping ahead of them, he had to be well-versed in the art of preparing for the worst.

He finally gave up and headed back down. He’d just handed the key back to the wide-eyed receptionist when Gwen’s voice crackled over his microphone. “Jack, get back here!” Her voice was thready. Reedy. “It’s – he came back. He came back, Jack! No, Andy, don’t – no!” she screeched. “Don’t shoot!” Gunshots preceded a high-pitched shriek of denial.

“Gwen?!” He thanked the receptionist and ran out the door. “What’s going on? Are you and Andy all right?”

“Andy, _don’t shoot!”_

The microphone crackled again, and then silence. He cursed.

He ran.

  
  


!i!i!i!

  
  


By the time he arrived back at the Plass, enough time had passed that Gwen and Andy could very well be dead. He thought he would be running into a field of destruction, or perhaps an empty street. Something either normal or evidence of the chaos he’d heard before the line had gone dark. He hadn’t expected to find the thief waiting for him.

The Plass wasn’t entirely empty; a few wandering souls passed back and forth across the walk, clearly on their ways to somewhere else. One woman with a very tight shirt looked him up and down for several moments. Normally, he might have given her a look and a wink in return. Tonight, all he could see was that man.

He stormed up to him. The man, arms crossed, said simply, “no further.” When Jack made to ignore his order, something once again grabbed him, this time around his shoulders. From the feel of it, he guessed it to be something like an arm.

He tried to duck under and around, only for the force against him to increase. The couple people left on the street looked and him and hurried on. The woman who’d been eyeing him scrunched her brows. “Are you okay?”

He glared at the thief. The bastard just waggled his fingers at him. “Fine,” he gritted. “Go on home.”

She sniffed. “You aren’t my father.” She stalked away, heels clicking on the stone. He almost chuckled, hysteria bubbling alongside the fury. He was too old to be her father.

The thief waited politely for the last straggler to leave, content to have Jack cooped up and unable to move. He tested the strength of the Vestige holding him again and again, but without the ability to grab them back, it was useless. He couldn’t break free from an invisible force.

When the Plass was empty, he strolled forward. The stones in his pack clacked with every step he took. He stopped a mere meter away from Jack. This was someone he could grab, if only the bastard would get into range. He pulled against the invisible arms holding him, wanting nothing more than to wring the life from the man’s neck. The thief watched him for several moments. Only when he stilled did the man speak. “I was willing to let bygones be bygones,” he said. Starting a monologue. Jack sneered at him.

“You mean you were willing to steal the souls of my subordinates and run.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Listen to you. You call them subordinates, but that level of fury is a little high for just that, isn’t it?”

Forget it. He launched himself forward, using all of his strength to pull the Vestige along with him. He actually managed to lurch a foot forward before the weight on his back doubled and he was brought to the ground. The only compensation was the startled look on the thief’s face as he backed away. It was worth kissing concrete to see that expression. To remind the man he wasn’t as infallible as he thought he was.

Still, with the weight on him so great it kept him from being able to get up, it burned to watch the man return and lean down in front of him. “I get it,” the man said. “I do. It was hard for me, too, the first time I learned my mother’s soul was partly housed inside a piece of basanite. Creepy, right?” He shifted, then finally knelt. “But these parts of people, these Vestiges. They’re everywhere. Me picking them up isn’t like me stealing them from people. It’s more like picking up spare change on the ground. You’re only upset because it’s change that belonged to people you cared about. But you left it there. Did you know that? The Vestige of your… ‘subordinate,’” he said, making quotation marks, “was left in Thames House. By _you_.”

He shivered. Goosebumps had risen over his body the moment the Vestige touched him, but only now did he feel a chill. The idea that a part of Ianto had been trapped in that place, in that moment in time – no. The thought made him sick.

“That doesn’t give you the right to take it. To take _him.”_

The man smiled. “Right. Because he’s more than just a subordinate. Don’t worry,” he said, holding up a hand. “I could figure that one out all on my own, even without speaking with him.” The man made sure to not use Ianto’s name. A wise call. “But you don’t get to cry foul only after realizing what it is you left behind. And you don’t get to chase me down simply because you want it back now that you know.”

It sounded so reasonable. Jack wanted to claw the man’s eyes out.

“You did, though.” He stood back up. All Jack could see was the man’s calves and knees. “I guess your motives are easily understood, and I get that you’re just trying to get something you want. Believe me, I can understand that one.” The man’s pack shook three times. Jack could only imagine the man was moving it deliberately. “But now I need to deal with you while I’m just trying to continue my collection. Everything that happens now is on you.” The man backed away. “Consider this a declaration of war, captain. And don’t forget I hold a couple of prisoners already.”

Jack snarled. “Let them go.” He struggled madly, but it didn’t work. Nothing worked. He lost sight of the man as he moved further away. His footsteps began to recede. “No! Wait! Just…” He breathed in gasps. “Just listen to me. Please.”

The footsteps stopped.

“Ianto…” Just the name brought pain. His fingers scraped against the stone beneath him. “They’re my friends.”

The man was silent for a time. Finally, Jack heard him sigh. “Look. I’m just trying to do my thing. All right? It’s not supposed to be such a big deal.” The man hopped back to him. “You keep freaking out about your ‘friends.’” The man put another quotation mark around that one. Jack could tell. “But haven’t you yet wondered about yourself? I mean, do you have any idea how many Vestiges of you there are out there?”

Jack saw the pack actually plop down in front of the man. He pulled it open and rummaged through for quite some time. Stone after stone clacked together, muffled slightly by the bags separating them. The man finally reached in with both hands, grunting at the effort. “I’ve had to transfer these, one after the other, with each one I found. I came here to Cardiff to find _you_.” He plopped the thing in-between them. “See?”

What Jack saw was the largest stone of amber he’d ever seen. A few bugs could be seen within, the entirety of the stone shifting from white to yellow to nearly orange. It almost seemed to glow. He felt… drawn to it, in ways he couldn’t understand. The thief’s words should have been impossible, yet… “Is that me?” he asked.

“Yup. Piece after piece of you. I traced a part of you with this – it resonates with any other piece missing, you know – and found Thames House. So many Vestiges within. Including another one of yours. I thought my luck had been magnificent enough, tracing yet another piece of this impossible man to that place. Then I spoke with one of the other Vestiges, and this one was a bit more forthcoming.” The man snorted. “Well, I was able to make him more forthcoming. You’re much harder to control than others.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d like that.” The man actually sat down cross-legged next to him. “Look. I like you. Hell, half the reason I collect Vestiges is for stuff like this! I love lost history, sure, but stuff like this? Like you? Crazy, impossible things? And Torchwood! Do you have any idea how thrilled I was to find something else from your weird little cult? Well, government-approved cult.” The man laughed. It was… strange. No artifice this time, and Jack was facing someone like an excited scholar. “But even if I like you and have spent over a decade chasing your Vestiges down doesn’t mean I’m gonna let you take my Vestiges or, heaven forbid, murder me. Got it?”

Jack… thought he might be beginning to understand. This guy was just some… some _collector_. He was doing this for _fun_. “They’re not yours. You don’t have any right to them. They belong at rest, not forced to do your bidding. Let them go. Do you hear me? _Let them go!_ ”

“I think people on the mainland can hear you, captain.” The man snorted. He played with the amber stone for a while, his fingers running up and down the surface. It was large enough that his two hands had been needed to wrap around it, and heavy enough to make the man grunt when he set it down. Jack wondered just how many parts of him were scattered inside that stone. How many times had he died in Cardiff? How many places had the man already found? Would the man use Jack’s own soul against him? No. If the man couldn’t even make his Vestige answer his questions, then there was no way he could force it to act on his behest.

It took minutes of effort for the man to move all of his other stones and fit the amber back inside his pack. When he was finished, he hefted it back up. Suddenly the deep weight and the muted clacking made even more sense. “I’m not going to hand them over just because you want them. If I did that, I wouldn’t have many of my own, now would I?” He stood again. This time when he stepped away, Jack knew he wouldn’t be coming back. “You could have just left me alone. I just wanted to find another Vestige of you. There were a few down there. You got killed in your own workplace, but you still work there. That’s dedication.”

The man shifted his grip on the backpack. Jack couldn’t see him anymore. It felt like too much time had passed. Like he was losing his last chance. “You have enough,” Jack said. “You don’t need them.”

“Are you kidding? They’re brilliant.” The man snorted. “I said I understand your position, not that I agree with it. I’m keeping the Vestiges, and I’m keeping you off my back.” The man shuffled around a bit. “Come on up,” he said, his voice quiet. Talking to someone else. The Vestige holding him down? No. Something else. Some _one_ else.

Jack experimented with his mobility. His hands were still mostly free, though in a disadvantageous position. He could probably reach his gun if he wanted to, but doubted what he’d be able to shoot with his face stuck to the ground. Still, it was good to know the option was available. Just in case. “What have you done to my team?” he asked finally.

“They’re fine. Or, they should be fine. I wasn’t really there. I’m waiting for an update myself.”

He’d sent someone in. Tosh again? Locking them in so they couldn’t interfere with this little meeting the man had set up? Had Andy tried to shoot at something he couldn’t even see? Maybe Jack had overestimated him. Or maybe the bastard had let the weevils loose, and his team even now were sporting injuries he couldn’t see.

He was about to ask the man what he’d done – what he’d ordered some poor soul to do – when he heard the sound of the sidewalk slipping into place. He frowned. Did Vestiges need things to move physically around them? He hadn’t paid attention to the keyboard, to whether Tosh’s touch had made the keys press down. They had to have. How else could the computer register the information she’d input? That was a handy piece of information.

“Come here,” the man said, his voice still low. Still talking to that someone whose soul beat against the walls of its prison. Steve heard footsteps. Sharp, staccato prints in a purposeful stride. His heart tripped. No. It didn’t matter how familiar that sound seemed. It was impossible.

Those shoes stepped into his line of sight. He stared at them, unable to look away. He’d seen them countless times. Remarked on them more than once. Removed them from those feet. He knew those shoes, that skin. He sucked in a ragged breath.

“ _What did you do?”_

“Say hello,” the man said quietly.

Those feet shifted slightly. Those pants, pressed and perfect despite having certainly been folded around that frame for too long, swished lightly around those ankles. The voice that spoke resonated through his bloodstream.

“Hello, Jack,” Ianto said.


End file.
